Episode 8: Homelessness

On this episode, Richie Greenberg explores the failure of the current mayor and board of supervisors to rein in the uncontrolled spending on homelessness. Richie blames the nonprofits and agencies for their ineffective programs, and shares his top priorities: cutting funding, stop off the grid urban camping, and provide a bus ticket home.

Transcript

WWRGDAM Episode 8: Homelessness

Can homelessness be solved?

Governor Gavin Newsom, first as San Francisco member of the board of supervisors, then as mayor, and now as governor of California, has promised to end homelessness for the last 20 years. Literally, he stated he will end it in every year since 2004,

San Francisco is famous the world over for several things: On the good side, the positive side, our city is known for natural beauty:

We have parks: Golden Gate Park, the best-known park along with Central Park in New York City. We have Dolores Park, the Presidio, Lands End, and dozens of smaller parks throughout our 49 square miles. 

We have beaches like ocean beach, hills, hiking, greenery, the Embarcadero. Nearby mountains, and we have vista points like twin Peaks and Coit Tower to view the magnificent physical beauty of San Francisco

We also have the Golden Gate Bridge, visitors from around the world flock to photograph the bridge, the hills around the bridge and take a walk across. We have the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, Aquatic Park.

San Francisco has culture: Chinatown and the city’s Chinese cuisine and parade, we have Japan town, Korean and other Asian cultures and influences; the Mission’s Latino culture, the Fillmore and Bayview. The Russian community, the long-time Jewish community; We have arts, the symphony, ballet, opera. We have several museums DeYoung, Legion of Honor, Modern Art Museum and the Academy of Sciences. And numerous smaller niche museums as well. And of course, the LGBT community and influence.

In the city’s past, we had the Beatniks, counterculture. The hippie movement, music legends like Jeferson Airplane and starship, the grateful dead, hot tuna, Journey, Santana, sly and the family stone, Huey Lewis and the News, to name a few; and of course,  the Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

Altogether, nature, the arts, the music melded together in creating the aura and the draw of people to come to San Francisco, to work and play here, to visit, to celebrate and to be a San Franciscan. That was then...

[pause]

And now, comes the not so good times... 

There are things we cannot control, and things we can control, like the human-caused damage to San Francisco. The homelessness on our city streets. The suffering due to addiction and related crimes. The humanitarian disaster of people kept on the streets by the inaction, or by actual malicious actions, of elected and appointed officials in city hall, and the activist nonprofits they support with contracts and funding.

It's more than a blemish; San Francisco has negatively evolved to be defined not by natural beauty, not by the music scene and the arts, culture and counter culture, beatniks of the past, not by previous booming economy, jobs and great schools, but by crime, by homelessness, drug dealing and those current city hall officials turning a blind eye, unphased by the turmoil and suffering in the Tenderloin and parts of South of Market, SoMa.

But this turning of a blind eye is also repeated by many San Franciscans themselves, by residents living in so-called better, safer neighborhood around the city. Many city residents state , well, their neighborhood is safe, and clean; they don’t see anything problematic here, so they have nothing to worry about, all’s good, the current city hall leaders must be doing a good job. Stop complaining.

But all is not okay. We are not okay, San Francisco is NOT ok. Crime, graffiti, tents and homeless addicts have been slowly creeping into the outer districts of San Francisco. There has been an uptick in crime, blight, tents and drug dealing in previously quieter neighborhoods. And we are paying attention.

When residents of the “better” neighborhoods ignore the plight of the Tenderloin, they also ignore the fact their tax monies, property taxes, sales tax, gasoline tax, taxes on food and on many more transactions, go to the San Francisco city hall coffers. Everyone around the city contributes taxes to city hall. But then, it’s spent on wasteful programs and on funding nonprofit organizations. And spent on the CEO's and top management of these unaccountable programs and organizations. San Francisco’s mayor’s office and board of supervisors together have been funneling taxpayers’ money being spent in an uncontrolled, unmonitored, unaccountable, ineffective manner, and then it only comes to light when found out by the public and exposed.

And now, 2024, City Hall has an enormous annual operating budget, and is facing a growing shortfall. Years of wasteful spending is now coming to a head.

[pause]

Along with this extremely damaging and ineffective answer to homelessness are activists. Activists working for special interest nonprofits and even other city government agencies and commissions which fight for their organizations' funding dollars - by negatively influencing public perception of the reality on the ground. Activists are actively lobbying, They want the squalor to remain, they work to enable and maintain the urban camping we see.  The nation sees.

Friends, we do not have to pay for this. As hardworking law-abiding citizens of this city, we should not be paying to keep tents on the sidewalks, to keep addicts addicted on our dime, to pay for ineffective programs and to line to pockets of nonprofit CEO's to just keep on failing, not any more.

Its time we say no. If I were mayor, I will say no, on Day 1. [5 min 16 sec]

I am a firm believer that much of the homelessness on our city’s streets is caused by the Nonprofit organizations themselves, in their desire to stay in business. To keep funding flowing, to keep their employees, their volunteers happy, their executive staff paid. Unfortunately, for us, this means the tents, the drug addicts and the dealers that feed them, remain. Until we cut off the funding.

It is very important to clarify, that there are several types of homeless though. Several categories. For example, the lowest level category are those individuals who have just moved to San Francisco, they have a job lined up or are between jobs, are able-bodied and just don’t have a home with their own lease, and are sleeping on a friend’s or relative’s couch, or a spare bedroom for the time being. This is one actual homelessness category. They do not need our assistance.

There are individuals who are living paycheck to paycheck, and their job has been lost , either closed down, or they were fired and now can’t afford rent.  They already have a home, whether as a roommate or a family or on their own. This situation is very different than the person who has a job and simply needs a new place to stay.  There are city programs already in place with assistance to maintain a home for the interim.

Another category is those individuals who say they wish to live off the grid, those who say they don’t want a job, don’t want a physical home, but want to live in a tent. These are very problematic individuals, as studies and interviews show, they are most likely the drug users, the urban campers - who often accept San Francisco’s public assistance including money handouts, costing the city’s taxpayers millions annually. And these drug users, addicts are the ones we need to focus on, to cut funding, to use existing laws to remove, and prioritize, with a ticket home, through the Homeward Bound program, expanded recently.

And the most difficult category are the mentally ill which live on the streets. We need sufficient shelters, assessments, and specialists to bring these individuals into a safe supervised environment for treatment. If they are suffering from mental illness as a result of drug abuse and addiction, then the only choice will be abstinence programs. Then a bus ticket homeward.

In all, the homelessness issue is a tremendous, huge drain on city hall resources, finances, a great source of tension, crime, its a catalyst for ballot measures and political fighting and candidates’ promising to clean things up. Heated arguments, lawsuits, corruption, and deaths at the hands of unscrupulous management companies are arguably the worst issue San Francisco faces today. 

We cannot be permanently, perpetually funding drug users’ habits, the time has come to end this madness.

[pause]

Again, I firmly believe that cutting a majority of the funding to the unaccountable, unmonitored nonprofit organizations will have a huge impact, because the incentive for addicts and off-the-grid tent dwellers to remain in San Francisco will be removed. Nonprofits engaged in exploiting homelessness will be cut off from funding.

Activists in nonprofits which are receiving grants and city hall contracts should not be fighting for more money. City Hall agencies and commissions should not be lobbying and fighting for more cash. 

Is what I propose, to cut off funding,  a punishment? Yes, absolutely yes. San Franciscans are upset, fed up and deservedly should not be forking over hard-earned money, at the expense of our city’s quality of life.

[pause]

All the best of San Francisco, the natural beauty, the culture and fun activities are being overshadowed by the extreme negative crime, homelessness, drug dealers. We know, over time, that perception of our city cannot return to a more pleasant view in the eyes of the public, until these core failures to lead have been quelled.

This issue is absolutely critical. Homelessness, especially caused by the free-flow of money should have been at the top of the list of every civil leader, especially the mayor, the board of supervisors and others. It is a colossal failure on their part.

[pause]

So, what would Richie Greenberg do, as mayor of San Francisco?

On Day 1, I will have a list of the most offending city department, and nonprofit organizations, those which have the highest funding, that are unaccountable, those that have a record of deaths and criminal complaints at their facilities they manage. Their contracts will be suspended for 30 days, and permanently terminated if they cannot show good cause why they should continue to be funded. CEOs and key employees will be banned for life from doing further business in this city.

I will also convene a panel to compile all nonprofits, the city agencies funding them, the effectiveness of their programs and outreach, and compare to grand jury investigations, with purpose to file civil and criminal complaints against offenders.

Here are priorities:

1) A bus ticket home. Here in San Francisco we already have several agencies which offer assistance to coordinate a return of individuals back to their home, with family, friends. I will expand this further and redirect city resources and funding, pulled from ineffective and terminated service organizations. This return home will become the default solution. No more money, no monthly handouts. A bus ticked homeward is the only answer.

2) Establish an advertising marketing campaign, to alert the greater public, do not send your child to San Francisco, do not send our city your problem, do not yourself come to San Francisco because you heard you can live in a tent and receive funds for your habit. No drug tourism. No urban camping. Those days are over, and you will not be welcomed with open arms, you cannot live here on our taxpayer's dime. We are not a care facility; we are not babysitters.

As a side note: The Homelessness and Supportive Housing agency will be thoroughly audited, and policy reviewed to ensure they are not adding to incentives for individuals to come to San Francisco. There as some problematic criteria which warrants investigation, for example, that an individual has a "connection" to San Francisco and therefore may be eligible for public assistance, fo they spend at least one night in San Francisco. This is unacceptable and the policy changed immediately.

SO, The position as mayor, the duties,  among other things, is to protect our city, to protect our precious economy, our nature, our residents and businesses alike, and to ensure visitors to San Francisco are treated respectfully with as safe, fun, memorable experience to tell others about. The status quo on homelessness is unacceptable, the policies are a failure and as mayor, those responsible for bringing down our city must be accountable, as job #1.